A giant thank you to Editor Mark Antony Rossi of Ariel Chart for publishing "Empty Benches."

http://arielchart.blogspot.com/2018/08/empty-benches.html

Empty Benches

 

One might comment,

Look at all those empty benches!

Yet, the poet sees:

An old woman who as a young girl rescued and raised a baby bird,

A lonely man whose wife cancer took,

A child reviewing his speech to Santa,

Twins, identical,

A young woman engrossed in her novel.

Dreamers and schemers,

Leaders, teachers, cheaters, 

Lovers and others, 

Criers and liars and gentle tear dryers,

Smilers and beguilers,

Anglofilers and reconcilers,

Addicts recovered and stars discovered,

Mothers and muggers,

Truckers and conductors,

Screamers and believers.

For the poet, empty benches do not exist.